Sewing Weekend

I joined up with friends Mary & Sharon for a quilt retreat over the weekend.  

The weather on Thursday and Friday ended up to be a big snowstorm, so I was about 4 hours late leaving home waiting for the roads to be better.  

My drive to Oak Forest included about 20 miles following a snow plow at 15 miles per hour, 

safe - yes, boring - YES.

Once I arrived at the retreat, Mary helped me unload my car and set up for sewing.

My view for the weekend, Mary to my left, Sharon to my right.

There were about 20 women at the gathering, 

each group of friends set up with machines close enough for chatting.

Lots of sewing and lots of visiting goes on.  It's one big room, almost impossible not to listen in on what others are talking about.  I think next time, I'm going to take a notebook and record some of the snippets of conversation,  a few that I remember from this weekend included:

a woman relating a work story at a large department store that included a dog in the store and dog poop in the shoe department, lots of medical stories were heard, some talk of sexy underwear, a scolding of one sister to the other for not taking care of her health and doctor visits, many, many, many conversations about grandkids and how proud the grandparents are (I hope that those grandkids get to hear that from time to time too),  husband stories - both good and bad, ex husband stories - mostly bad, tips about good places to buy fabric, and much, much more.

I learned how to make fleece lined mittens from an old wool sweater, I worked on embellishing some diapers for use as spit towels for babies, I sewed a set of pillowcases using a technique that hides all seams, and I finished a quilt top and matching shams.

Cloth diaper with embellishment.

Quilt pieces on the way to being a quilt

Sewing the strips together

Finished!  Quilt top

I sewed this quilt top for Laila for a bedspread.
All it needs now is a backing and some quilting and it will be ready to use.

The weekend flew by.

We sewed until 1:30 am both Friday and Saturday nights and were up and sewing again by 7 the next morning.  All we did was sew and eat.  The meals are provided there and it was about the only break we had from our sewing and cutting and pressing.

I paid my deposit to go in the Fall again, I'm already planning projects to take along.

***

Sadly, our Wisconsin Badgers lost by one point in the last 5 seconds on Saturday night.  Most of the quilters were interested in the game.  I was able to get the scoring updates on my phone, so while I missed watching the game, I was connected to the action.  Laila helped by texting me updates as well.

We all wished that we were going to see the Badgers in the championship game, 

but it was a great season anyway.